Hope Davis repeats a line Goldie Hawn once said about the three stages for women in Hollywood: “There’s babe, district attorney and ‘Driving Miss Daisy.’ ”

“I love that because it’s so true,” says the actress, who is 50. “And I’m in the district attorney stage, and though I play mom in this case, I get to play a Russian spy. It’s just so deliciously fun.”

Davis is starring in the new NBC espionage thriller “Allegiance,” premiering 10 p.m. Thursday. Like “Homeland” it is based on an Israeli spy drama. From George Nolfi (“The Adjustment Bureau,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”), the 13-episode series surprisingly has the drive and intensity of a cable show as it delves into the murky world of Russian vs. American spies.

The series is also part family drama, drawing inevitable comparisons to FX’s “The Americans,” which is set 30 years earlier in the Cold War. Watch the first three episodes of “Allegiance,” though, and it becomes clear that the thriller charts its own exciting course.

Davis plays the Russian-born Katya, who was sent late in the Cold War by the then-Soviet spy organization KGB to recruit an American businessman, Mark O’Connor (Scott Cohen), but the two fell in love. Katya then made a deal that as long as she and Mark remain assets, they could marry and settle in America. When their son, Alex (Gavin Stenhouse), becomes a CIA analyst specializing in Russian affairs, the KGB’s successor, the SVR (Russian Foreign Intelligence Service), tells the couple to spy on their son.

Nolfi began working on “Allegiance” before recent events — such as Russia’s interference in Ukraine — brought a new chill to relations between the countries. “The U.S. and Russia are two great superpowers who’ve always had a difficult relationship,” notes Davis, and she says the show goes on to call into question the moral integrity of both nations.

To play the conflicted Russian-born Katya, Davis has begun learning the language. “I wanted to get my head around this role,” says the actress, who is married and has two children, ages 10 and 12, and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., where “Allegiance” is filmed.

“Russian is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn. Luckily, we have Russian speaking cast members,” she says, speaking of Margarita Levieva (“Revenge”), who plays her oldest daughter and was born in Leningrad and lived there until she was 11.

Being able to film near home wasn’t the only thing that attracted the actress to “Allegiance,” but it helped. While Davis has worked steadily, she admits she’s not a workaholic and being a mother is important to her. She calls the last 12 years “the happiest of my life.”

Davis also will be seen in another TV series, “Wayward Pines,” M. Night Shyamalan’s eerie “Twin Peaks”-like saga premiering on Fox in May. It was shot in Pennsylvania.

Los Angeles stage audiences will remember Davis from 2011’s triumphal run at the Ahmanson Theatre of Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning “God of Carnage,” with Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and the late James Gandolfini. The four had originated the roles on Broadway, and Davis says she is reminded of Gandolfini on her way to the “Allegiance” set by a “huge ‘Sopranos’ poster with him standing there.”

Though Davis has done television before, she sees the landscape of the medium changing. “I think networks are seeing how well the cable model works of doing 10 or so episodes of something and coming back the next year,” she says.

“Television is where good writers are coming to do their work,” she adds, “and for those of us who want to explore characters and to be part of a larger story, it’s a great way to work.”

Davis has a high regard for Nolfi. “Sometimes shows really need the actors to guide the characters but — I’m not blowing smoke here — in the case of George Nolfi, he is so good at what he does and in control of the story arc that people know exactly who they are coming into the series.”

She thinks Nolfi and NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt, who once oversaw Showtime, are trying to change the way network TV looks. Indeed, NBC has another good-looking, high-octane thriller coming with “Odyssey” in April, and on Feb. 12 comes a dark drama called “The Slap,” a limited series with a strong ensemble cast. Both could have been on cable.

“Allegiance” opens with an attention-grabbing scene involving a spy trying to defect. Nolfi, who studied geopolitical issues at UCLA and Princeton, says there have been a lot of things that seemed unimaginable. “Whether it’s a civilian jetliner getting shot down by a military missile or what happened in Paris or on 9/11,” he notes, “I think there’s an increasing appreciation for how dangerous the world is and how serious entities of all stripes want to do harm to America, the West.”

If early episodes are an indication, the series will have viewers guessing as to what twists might be next. Even Davis says she doesn’t know how the season will end, since there are three more episodes to shoot.

“George keeps us in the dark on every episode until something shocking happens,” she says with a smile.

Rob Lowman began at the L.A. Daily News working in editing positions on the news side, including working on Page 1 the day the L.A. Riots began in 1992. In 1993, he made the move to features, and in 1995 became the Entertainment Editor for 15 years. He returned to writing full time in 2010. Throughout his career he has interviewed a wide range of celebrities in the arts. The list includes the likes of Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood to Kristin Stewart and Emma Stone in Hollywood; classical figures like Yo Yo Ma and Gustavo Dudamel to pop stars like Norah Jones, Milly Cyrus and Madonna; and authors such as Joseph Heller, John Irving and Lee Child. Rob has covered theater, dance and the fine arts as well as reviewing film, TV and stage. He has also covered award shows and written news stories related to the entertainment business. A longtime resident of Santa Clarita, Rob is still working on his first more-than-30-year marriage, has three grown children (all with master's degrees) and five guitars.

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